


Might as Well Swim

by originally



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:23:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originally/pseuds/originally
Summary: Kent and Jack find themselves at the All-Star Game together for the first time.





	Might as Well Swim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OldLace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldLace/gifts).



> In the AU version of the NHL that Check Please! takes place in, for reasons of plot let's assume they kept the player fantasy draft format for the ASG instead of the more recent divisional 3-on-3.

The All-Star Weekend is many things: an opportunity for the NHL’s best to come together to put on a show for the fans, a chance to hang out with guys you rarely see during the season, and an excuse for a bunch of the biggest stars to suddenly find themselves struck down with a mysterious injury they urgently need to rehab. Kent’s honestly surprised that Jack didn’t go that route. Instead, he’s here backstage in the Toyota Center with the rest of them, giving an interview with Pierre Maguire so awkward that Kent really wants to laugh.

He leans back in his chair and studies Jack instead, trying not to make it obvious. The tension between them didn’t go away when Jack came into the league. If anything, things got even more weird. He hadn’t bargained for how much of a drag it would be to answer endless fucking questions about Jack every time they played the Falcs, the same inane shit about the Mem Cup and the Q over and over. It’s ancient history, and Kent’s doing his best to keep it buried.

He is now, at least.

The NBC camera guy pans over to Kent and he schools his face, gives a thumbs up and a slow grin. The All-Star machinery rolls on. Two captains have been assigned for the player draft: Branden Williams, captain of the hosting Aeros, and Joel Sjöqvist, who wears the C for Seattle. Kent knows them both well. He feels a weird kind of camaraderie with the captains of the other expansion teams, the ones that joined the league at the same time as Vegas. It’s kind of like they grew up together. Well, that and the fans love it when he fights Williams. He’s been cultivating a decent rivalry on the ice, with some occasional hatefucking off it. It’s pretty great.

They’re getting ready to announce the first pick. Kent can’t help sneaking a glance at Jack across the room, but Jack’s leaning over to talk with two guys from the Pens, looking like he couldn’t give a shit.

“Hey, why the heck not. Kent Parson,” Williams says, to a mixed chorus of cheers and boos from the crowd. Kent grins as he claps Willy on the back and accepts his jersey, giving a few soundbites when they ask him how it feels to go first overall again.

Next, Sjöqvist calls out, “I have to go with Mäkinen.”

The Schooners’ goalie, a towering Finn, gives his captain a nod, settling himself on the Team Sjöqvist bench on the opposite side to Kent.

There's a few seconds of discussion between Willy and his As before he looks up from his sheaf of paper with a gleeful expression that Kent has seen too many times on the ice for comfort. He waits until the crowd quiets down before announcing, “With our second pick, we take Jack Zimmermann.”

*

  
As press conferences go, Kent doesn’t mind these ones. Most of the reporters here are the league’s tame ones and they only throw softballs. Everyone’s toeing the line that this is a wholesome weekend for all the family. All they want him to say is how happy he is to be here, and maybe show a little personality for the cameras, the kind the league usually doesn’t tolerate. If he had kids they’d be running around in little Parson jerseys and the fucking social media influencers with their iPhones would be plastering shots of them all over Insta. Instead he gets his own phone out and snaps a couple pictures of guys already speaking with the press, a selfie where his hair looks ok, the branded backdrops. When he looks up, Jack’s watching him. He looks away when Kent tries to catch his eye.

It’s 75 in Houston; warm for January, even this far south. Kent’s used to heat now he’s been playing hockey in the desert for nearly a decade, but Jack’s a Canadian who never strayed far from the border. He looks like he’s sweating, like he’d rather be wearing shorts than the suit he’s got on for the morning’s media circus. Then again, Jack always seems on edge at these kind of shindigs. Always has done.

Kent’s considering saying something when a pair of flustered-looking assistants come to direct them to their tables. He bats back all the softballs, turns up the charm, flashes some teeth (with no fucking gaps, unlike some dudes he could mention).

“Are you looking forward to playing with Jack Zimmermann again?” someone asks, and Kent keeps the smile in place.

“Well, it’s been a long time since we last played together so we might be a little rusty.”

“But you’re looking forward to it?”

“For sure,” Kent says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jack at the next table over. “It’ll be fun to see if the old chemistry is there.”

It was still there the last time they were alone in a room together, Kent doesn’t say.

"Do you think you two will be competing with each other in the skills portion of the weekend?"

"I'm always competitive," Kent says. The reporters laugh. He hears Jack say, “…had some run-ins on the ice.”

“Last night’s draft saw a little bit of history repeating. If Zimmermann hadn’t pulled out of the entry draft in 2009, do you think you would still have gone first overall back then like you did last night?”

Jesus Christ. “I think the best player would have gone first.” He flashes the teeth again, pauses for a second. “Just like last night.”

Jack finishes his interview and leaves. He doesn’t look back.

*

“You two know you’re on the same team, right?” Willy mutters later, out of range of the mics.

“Right now, maybe,” Kent tells him. Out on the ice, Jack steps up to take the accuracy challenge.

“Christ, Parse. I didn’t know anyone could crack your fucking too cool for school bullshit. Do you think he could teach me?”

“Whatever,” Kent says. In the end, he beats Jack’s time by one second, then Sjöqvist embarrasses them both.

He spends the evening avoiding meeting Bad Bob’s eyes in the bar.

*

It’s terrifyingly, exhilaratingly easy to slip back into old patterns. The old teenage chemistry crackles between them like lightning from a Tesla coil as they go flying down the ice together. The puck lands on Kent’s tape and he dekes around a defender, protecting it with a toe drag before letting it go again without looking; he knows, as instinctively as breathing, where Jack will be. He drives the net for the rebound, but there’s no need. The puck is already behind Mäkinen. The goal lamp lights, the crowd roars, and Kent whoops and turns just in time to catch Jack in a hug. Williams crashes into them both from behind, yelling, “I knew you two motherfuckers still had it!” Kent laughs in delight and Jack grins down at him, the cold mask he’s been wearing all weekend stripped away with the pure joy of scoring. They disentangle to skate down the bench for fistbumps. Shore, the backup goalie, smacks Kent on the ass after opening the door for him. Jack settles on the bench next to Kent and Kent nudges him with his elbow.

“Nice to know you didn’t let that onetimer get rusty,” he says.

Jack gives him a lopsided smile around his mouthguard. “You should know. I scored enough against you this season.”

Kent laughs and elbows him a little harder. They both watch as Team Sjöqvist puts one in, then Williams retaliates with a goal from the blueline to tumultuous hometown cheers. Coach taps Kent on the shoulder to let him know their line is up.

“Hey, Zimms,” he says as he climbs over the boards, smirking over at Jack. “Let's see if that was a fluke.”

*

It's not a fluke. By the end of the game, they've scored five goals between them: two for Kent and a hatty for Jack, plus one for their liney who’d been complaining (maybe only half sarcastically) about them hogging the spotlight. 

Jack’s still all easy smiles dealing with the post-game media, laughingly talking about “Uncle Mario” when someone asks him about the points record they both tied. His expression gets tighter as they ask about Kent, about their chemistry, about how it felt to play together again. “It’s always a good feeling to score goals, no matter who it’s with,” he says.

“So you and Kent Parson haven’t rekindled your old friendship this weekend?”

“He’s a talented player and I respect that,” Jack says, in the blandest of Good Old Canadian Boy tones.

Kent’s halfway across the dressing room but he stops and heads to the showers instead, swallowing down all the things he thinks about saying.

*

He’s flying back to Vegas tomorrow, and Jack to Providence. They won’t have to see each other again until next season, not unless they both reach the goddamn final (he touches the brim of his Aces snapback for luck just in case). It shouldn’t even matter that Jack was rude about him. Fuck, not even rude, that’s the worst part. Just painfully, passive-aggressively Canadian polite about him. Kent hates that. He can’t help remembering that little smile Jack gave him on the bench, how easily they’d fit together on the ice again.

He paces his room a few times, makes a half-hearted effort at packing up his shit ready for the stupidly early flight he’s on tomorrow, sends a couple texts to Willy and the boys. Then he grabs his keycard and wrenches the door open, mind made up.

Jack motherfucking Zimmermann is standing in the doorway, fist raised to knock.

“Zimms,” Kent says, with a monumental effort at coolness.

“Uh,” Jack says, “hey, Kenny.”

A couple of guys are hanging around in the hallway, so Kent steps aside to let Jack in. He stands at the foot of Kent’s hotel bed, wordlessly twisting his hands together. Kent leans against the door and waits him out.

“You played good hockey today,” Jack says. That’s not what Kent was expecting. “I just wanted to say that it was fun, playing together again. I, my therapist—uh, I mean, I thought you should know.”

“Your therapist told you to come tell me I played good hockey?”

“ _Crisse_ ,” Jack says, “this was a bad idea. I’ll go—”

“Hold up,” Kent says. He’s still blocking the door, so Jack can loom over him all he wants. “Jeez, Zimms, just wait a second—”

“Let me go.”

“Hey, you’re the one who came to me, bud.”

“Yes, and I’m already regretting it,” Jack snaps.

Something that’s been simmering under Kent’s ribcage comes to a roaring boil. “Oh, fuck you,” he says, not troubling to keep his voice down, “you want to talk about regrets now?”

“What do you have to regret?” Jack says, and Kent’s never heard that bitter tone from him before.

“What the fuck, asshole, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I bet you thought it was funny the way they kept asking you about going first, eh?”

“Are you serious? You think I liked the way everything went down back then? I was terrified.”

“You weren’t the one in the hospital.”

“Of course I wasn’t!” Kent yells. “Use that college brain of yours, Zimms, fuck.”

“What—”

“I went to the draft and I put on my Vegas sweater and smiled for the fucking cameras and never once let on that my—that I was worried out of my goddamn mind. You think the league wanted to hear about how the guy I used to bang took a fucking overdose and I didn’t even know there was a problem? You gotta keep that shit locked down, man, you know how to play this stupid game. Don’t let them see you squirm.”

Kent’s breathing hard, like he just came off a shift, and Jack’s looking at him like he’s never seen him before.

“I didn’t know.”

“You never asked.”

It hangs in the air between them for a beat before they’re crashing together, Kent fitting back into Jack’s space like he never left it, like they’re young and fucking dumb all over again. He catches Jack’s lips in a kiss, bites at them until he tastes copper. He’s never been able to let this go, no matter how many dudes he’s fucked since then.

“Fuck,” Kent says and pushes Jack back against the wall, not gently. He wants him to remember this tomorrow when he’s sitting on the plane.

They wrestle for it, hands and mouths and elbows knocking together. They’re both bigger than the last time they tried this, but Jack smells familiar when Kent presses his nose to the skin of his throat, like salt and soap and clean sweat. He slides his hands under the waistband of Jack’s suit, works the button open until he can wrap his hand around Jack’s dick.

“Kenny,” Jack says into Kent’s hair, his voice a warning.

“Isn’t this what you came for?” Kent says.

And of course it is. It always comes back to this, no matter how much they both try to bury it. No matter how many times they put choose hockey, how many times they hurt each other, how many times Jack stonewalls him.

It doesn’t take long with them both so worked up. Afterward, Jack gives him a wide-eyed look, trying to straighten his disaster of a suit so it doesn’t look like a walk of shame when he heads out the door.

Kent stops him with a hand on his arm. “Look, Zimms, I really am sorry about how it went down before.”

Jack smiles, a little sadly. “I know. I meant it when I said it was good to play with you again.”

There's a long moment where it feels like they're both on the cusp of saying something else, a weird tension broken only when Jack turns to leave.

“Call me,” Kent says flippantly, like an asshole, because he's fucking pathologically incapable of not ruining a moment. Jack stops and turns back, crowding Kent against the wall. For a wild second Kent thinks he's going to get slugged, then Jack leans down to fit their mouths together.

This kiss is nothing like before. It's slow and tender, Jack’s calloused fingers cupping Kent’s cheek, gently, like he's something fragile. His lips are warm and soft and a little swollen, and Kent licks over the spot his teeth caught before, almost an apology. A shiver runs through Jack and his lips part for Kent’s tongue: capitulation, not a fight this time. Kent tangles his fingers in Jack’s hair and let's himself take.

“I, uh. Maybe I’ll see you in June, eh?” Jack says when they break apart. Kent blinks up at him. He’d almost forgotten how fucking blue Jack’s eyes are.

“Maybe we’ll kick your ass in June, you mean,” he says, but there's no bite to it. He knows Jack hears what it is he's not saying.

It's a long time after the door closes on Jack that Kent feels he can breathe again.


End file.
